Our website uses cookies to improve your user experience. If you continue browsing, we assume that you consent to our use of cookies. More information can be found in our Cookies Policy and Privacy Policy.

Aviva buys majority stake in robo-adviser Wealthify

Aviva is set to acquire a majority stake in robo-investment service Wealthify.

While it does not give regulated advice, Wealthify offers Isas and general investment accounts that invest in the five model portfolios it manages.

Aviva wants to make these available through its digital hub MyAviva. Subject to regulatory approval, purchasing 18-month-old start-up Wealthify leads Aviva down a similar road to competitors like LV, which owns a majority stake in Wealth Wizards, BlackRock, which owns FutureAdvisor, and Allianz, which has a stake in MoneyFarm.

Aviva UK digital managing director Blair Turnbull says: “This is another important step in Aviva’s digital strategy. It underlines our commitment to invest in and partner with leading digital businesses, allowing our customers to benefit from new technology and making insurance and investments simpler, easier and more convenient.”

Aviva explains its Wealthify purchase

Wealthify chief executive Richard Theo says Aviva’s investment will be used to speed up its growth plans, but also to improve its technology.

Finance and Technology Research Centre director Ian McKenna says: “Its about speed to market. The reason you it this way is that, its nothing Aviva couldn’t do themselves, but it would take them 18 months to do it. This way they are in the market sooner.

“This will trigger a lot more M&A activity in the area. Having bought one, who wants to get caught without? The question is are there enough to go round? Probably not.”

Recommended

Tilney has announced the appointment of a new chief executive as it confirms Peter Hall will step down after seven years’ service. Chris Woodhouse, who was most recently chief executive of UK motoring and financial services group RAC, will replace Hall. Hall will become an adviser to Permira. Tilney chairman Will Samuel says Hall led […]

The definitions of adjusted income and threshold income used to determine whether, and to what extent, someone’s annual allowance will be reduced can be confusing. Here we try to make sense of it all. The annual allowance will be reduced for high income individuals from 6 April 2016. Our previous article Tapering of annual allowance […]

Clients of St James’s Place have attacked the firm over what they say is an opaque charging structure and punitive levels of exit fees. The Sunday Times was asked to examine what retired solicitor Arnold Rosen had been charged by SJP between 2009 and 2015 after Rosen could not work out the level of charges […]

SCM Direct, the wealth manager run by Brexit and fee transparency campaigners Gina and Alan Miller, has called Nutmeg’s business model into question after results yesterday showed the robo-adviser’s mounting losses. Nutmeg reported losses of £9.4m for 2016, up from £8.9m in 2015. In a blog on the SCM website, the Millers say the Treasury […]

Michael Howard, Head of Alternative Investments at Prudential Portfolio Management Group (PPMG), discusses the opportunities presented by infrastructure investment. Infrastructure investment has gained in popularity over recent decades as more investors have sought diversification, stable long-term income streams and an element of inflation protection. Infrastructure is extremely diverse but in essence refers to assets that […]

Newsletter

Latest from Money Marketing

Ahead of his appearance at Money Marketing’s flagship conference, Money Marketing Interactive, this April, Helm Godfrey chairman Danby Bloch looks at getting graduates into advice and making adviser the ‘go-to gurus’ of finance What should we be doing to get more new advisers into the profession? There’s no quick fix, but there are lots of […]

The way centralised investment propositions run today is far from perfect. So where do we go from here? There should be a name for the rule of thumb that says, just as the retail financial services industry reaches some consensus that something should be done a certain way, it all starts falling apart. In fact, […]

A look at the important take-aways from the senior manager regime’s previous implementation for those beginning their own preparations The forthcoming extension of the Senior Managers & Certification Regime represents the next major regulatory change that gets to the heart of a firm’s culture, governance and operational considerations. SM&CR implementation will not be a one-time […]